Welcome to the hell of the south. Grozny is not only known for it's mediocre football team and being the pretty dangerous capital of the Chechen Republic, but also for it's fantastic hard cobbled classic. After last years excitement the event has even grown bigger, and we see plenty of sign on the roads for last years winner Summerhill. He is the outright favourite this year as well, but surely not the only guy able to win this. Well, some experts say he is but anyway, there are some guys that have the self-image of winning this thing in the way that the american has. Can any of these guys upset things?
It will be very interesting to see the formation of the group, as only 12 teams fill the startlist of this classic. In a pretty much uncontestant way the first group comes away, containing...
... Kaislavuo & De Luna. Strange that Vivacom didn't send a man up the road despite having no captain at all on the startlist.
In the pack 4 teams work to keep the advantage of the couple at under 3 minutes:
Azteca Strava Novatek Lierse
200 km - 3'00
175 km - 2'30
150 km - 2'00
By the way, we have a very windy day today. An indicator for even more action?
125 km - 2'40
Only 69 riders left in the pack, but nothing is really happening. Vermote drags some faster turns and reducec the bunch to 50 with still over 100 to go.
Meanwhile Richardson, Naesen and Selvaggi down in a crash, but they all come back. Taillefour falls back without a crash, the onl possible explanation for that is his hill stat in comparison with horrible form. We still haven't had the 100k to go!
100 km - 3'30
90 km - 1'45
80 km - '35
70 km - 1'08
Summerhill though far too often in the wind, at least it's looking like that. Will this hurt him later? He surely needs a team at some point.
Meanwhile...
... De Luna has dropped his former companion Kaislavuo, who gets sucked of by the pack. Soon the same will happen to the mexican too. With 65 to go everything is back together, and Samayoa leads a pack of 39 riders. We want some action!
Naesen is surely influenced by that horrible crash, he is gone again with 55 to go and surely won't come back.
55 km - 35 riders
Summerhill is already puching at the front, but riding tempo for everyone. Surely this can't be his tactics.
50 km - 34 riders
40 km - 30 riders
30 km - 30 riders
It's raced like a shootout now, but the american doesn't do any damage. We just hope for some action to come.
There we go! 24 km to go and Danny opened up a gap out of nowhere. Now we hopefully have a race going on. Selvaggi chases for a group of 20.
17 km - '35
Vanbilsen now taking responsibility for the chase together with Maes and Baugnies.
15 km - '42
12.5 km - '50
10 km - '45
With 8.5 kilometer to go...
... Van Asbroeck has reduced the group down to 5 guys. The current race situation:
Summerhill
+ '42
Van Asbroeck Baugnies Vanbilsen Franzoi Maes
+ '22
Teunissen Langeveld
+ 1'03
Sibilla Zepuntke Cancellara Bush Gaudin Nepomnyachsniy De Backer Debesay Van Wyk Vermote
+ '35
Breschel Eeckhout
5 km - '40
Baugnies loses contact to the group upfront. In the back first Bush and then Debesay join the group 3.
Going back to the front it's a race between Summerhill and Van Asbroeck, which the later can't win. Like this we reach the finishing line with a comfortable win for...
... Danny Summerhill. He has no energy left for any celebration though. It will most likely still be a great result for Lierse, cause...
...it seems that nobody besides Vanbilsen has energy left. The couple in yellow & black then...
...takes the final podium spots.
Franzoi, Maes & Baugnies roll in next before the next group fights out the final row in the Top 10. At the end of the day it's...
Bush ahead of Debesay, Langeveld and Teunissen.
This closes out a very strange day of racing here in Grozny, we rarely see a race that passive. On top of that, only 34 riders finished the race! Still we will complete our report with massive congrats to the winner and a picture of him taking the trophy:
Russia 
